As I Was Saying….

The last post I made on here was on April 9th — two and a half months ago. The reason for this isn’t because I haven’t had anything to say, or because I was busy, or found other interests. Quite the opposite, in fact.

The reason that I haven’t posted on here: I can’t post from the mobile app anymore.

This was incredibly convenient for me. I could take 20 minutes and fire something off fairly quick, in real time, and share it with you all. I do have a laptop, but I spend most of my online time on my iPhone and my iPad.

One thing that I have to say that bothered me was that Medium didn’t announce this easily, I didn’t realize it until I tried to post something one day on my phone and I wasn’t able to. After several Google searches and digging I finally found where Medium said they made the “difficult decision” to disable mobile posting, not really giving a reason as to why they did.

I have issues with this for a number of reasons.

First, I never like it when people talk about “difficult decisions.” The first thing I think of is when I put in for a job and it was a “difficult decision” to not give me the opportunity. As if that’s supposed to make me feel better. Just say something more straightforward, and spare me how painstaking a decision it was implying how everyone stayed up all night to decide which candidate was the best. Just say “not this time” or something to that effect. Even better, some encouragement would be nice. “Do not hesitate to apply for other positions that interest you,” or something like that. I know I have seen that when I applied for jobs in the past that I knew were a broad reach, and it’s encouraging. Especially now, with the country basically being at as close to full employment as it has ever been. Basically, full employment is Steve Carlton, and the economy on the whole is the 1972 Philadelphia Phillies. Look it up.

As far as Medium, something prominent and specific reasoning why mobile posting was pulled would have been appreciated. Again, spare me how it was a “difficult decision”. My guess is that it wasn’t. I don’t know why, but something doesn’t seem right here.

Even if I couldn’t do something in the native app, being able to upload a Word doc or a Google doc would be fine. But we don’t have that option. There is an option on the desktop where you can upload from your own website, but what if you don’t have one? The closest I have is a domain that links to my Twitter page, and maybe I could make that work, but it seems more problems than its worth.

Anyway, the point being I don’t know why the feature was disabled, or why it was such a “difficult decision” to do it. I don’t care how difficult it was, I’d rather know why it was done, and why it’s all but impossible to post any content on anything except laptops. Maybe that’s not how most people roll on here, but that’s how I roll. And I’m sure I’m not alone.

With all that said, I did find a workaround where I would be able to basically access the Medium desktop app on my phone. I haven’t really tried it, but I was able to get to this screen where I am able to post to my heart’s content using my mobile device of choice. It involves deleting the Medium app from my phone (which I don’t like) and it still won’t work on certain browsers and you have to change the settings. But if you’re really motivated, you can do it.

But in the end, it’s like what John Madden said during the 1987 NFL players strike. He compared the NFL to a candy store, and it was the only place that sold the candy you wanted, and the candy store was closed, and there was no other place you could get the candy you wanted. Or something like that. In a similar way, Medium is Medium. It is good. It gives me visibility, it allows me to get my reps. It is easy to use. It is the first time I’ve really had a consistent blog going, and even during this extended absence I don’t think I have lost that rhythm. Like I said, it’s a matter of access, a matter of what works for me. I can’t be the only one who misses not being able to post via mobile device, and I don’t know why the decision to pull that was so damned difficult.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say about that. Anyone else miss mobile posting? Or am I the only one?